Easily distracted? You need ‘Self Control’ for Ubuntu [App]

Procrastination attacks us all, especially when there is work to be done.

Whether your vice is being glued to your e-mail inbox, YouTube or something worse – such as holding the crown for ‘Frantic Facebook Refresher of the year’ – there is a nuclear option available in Ubuntu that aims to obliterate your addiction to internet loitering.

Self Control

Based on the OS X application of the same name, Self Control allows you to ‘block access to incoming and/or outgoing mail servers and websites’ for a specified amount of time.

For example, you could block access to your email and twitter accounts for one hour, but still have access to the rest the web has to offer.

For any Smart Alec’s out there thinking “Cool, but I’d turn it off if I got bored.” then listen up: Once Self Control has been started it can not be stopped*.

Quitting the application won’t work, deleting the application won’t work and restarting your computer won’t work: you must wait for the timer to run out.

It’s easy to see which (if any) blocks are currently running. Head to the ‘View’ menu and select ‘ Active blocks’.

But as noted above you won’t be able to stop any active blocks once in progress.

Download

Self Control can be downloaded in pre-packaged .deb format for Ubuntu using the link below.